"I have learned the decisions you make when you are young are very important," said Lynn Mason, who volunteers three hours weekly to teach a computer course for the Christian Women's Job Corps program at University Baptist Mission Center.

"Some of us are very fortunate that we made decisions early that were good choices," she added.

Mason teaches computer information systems at Lubbock Christian University, a program that has grown to 62 students. She earned her doctorate degree in instructional technology in Texas Tech's School of Education in 1992.

"You look at the contrast between LCU students and those there (in Christian Women's Job Corps), and you see how blessed our students are."

She gets irritated with LCU "students who won't try, knowing someone over there would like to have that opportunity."

With the difficult life situations that the women in the special training program face, "you've got to admire these ladies," Mason said.

One woman married at 15, has four children and was abandoned by her husband.

"The last I heard, she was ready to start her GED," Mason said.

Mason got involved in the program after reading about it in the Avalanche-Journal. She called Sarah Weaver and volunteered to teach computer skills. Weaver was the volunteer director until 1999, when the program had enough financial support to hire an executive director.

"I've taught ever since, except the classes that run through May," she said, because of her summer school teaching duties at LCU.

"Christian Women's Job Corps felt like something I could do, and something I could contribute," Mason said. "It is such a good deal" for students trying to learn skills that would make them employable. "I thought it was a good program and stayed with it."

Students in Free Enterprise, a program led by Dave Vernon at LCU, also has gotten involved with the Job Corps program, using it as a project.

"So I have students who go down with me and help teach," Mason said. "We've just gotten all sorts of good out of it. The students benefit from going down there, and the girls benefit from relating to people more their age who are students. It helps both ways."

When LCU students learn about needs in the families of the women who are in training, they respond by finding ways to help, she said. For example, children needed shoes and clothes. The students made Christmas baskets and bought them shoes and clothes.

The hardest part of teaching in the program is "not getting impatient, when you tell them the same thing over and over," Mason said. Much of that is related to their lack of keyboard skills.

"Watching them grow and change" is the most rewarding part of her volunteer work. "By the end of the course, they seldom ask a question because they know how to get in the system," she said.

"Even if you work at McDonald's, you end up working on a computer," Mason added.

The difficult situations that have brought the women into the classes stem, "I strongly suspect from poor decisions, whether it be drugs, alcohol or marrying early," Mason said.

In addition to the skills training the 10-week program provides, "you see a spiritual change," Mason said. "They come in unhappy and unsecure of themselves. By the time they leave, they much more spiritual people, much more self-confident."